Madeleine L’Engle (author of Newberry Award Winning A Wrinkle in Time) was known for her fascinating perspectives on art, story, and faith. She was also a lightning rod for controversy – too Christian for some, too unorthodox for others. Somewhere in the middle was a complex woman whose embrace of paradox continues to be a beacon for generations of readers struggling to reconcile faith and science, art and religion, sacred and secular.

I’m painting a portrait of one of the spiritual giants who has gone before us,” writes Arthur. “And I’m encouraging a new generation of readers to seek and trust her as a spiritual guide. To borrow imagery from A Wrinkle in Time, we’re Meg Murray and she’s Mrs. Whatsit, traveling through time to challenge and encourage us.”

Laura says that we all live inside our stories and we make homes of them. But when our stories become secrets, those homes become prisons. If you have a story you are not telling anyone, anywhere, in any way – that is not privacy, it’s secrecy. The difference between privacy and secrecy is simple: Shame. A lifelong secret-keeper, Laura Parrott Perry began the process of transforming into a storyteller when the dark secrets she’d been carrying around became too heavy and her life began to collapse under the weight of them. Sexual abuse, eating disorders, alcohol, perfectionism… Those secrets were all Laura’s story that was making itself known when she was unwilling to tell it. Bit by bit, story by story, Laura began to shine a light into all those dark corners and tell the truth. She surrendered to the facts of her life and her past, and in doing so began to write a beautiful new future.

You guys, this conversation was so beautiful, so hopeful, and so honest. If your story is making itself known in any unsettling way because you are keeping it a secret, I hope Laura’s words help.

Laura is also the co-founder of a nonprofit called Say it Survivor, which is committed to raise awareness and remove the stigma surrounding sexual abuse by telling our story shamelessly and encouraging other survivors to do the same.

Scott Perkins was on staff at a large church, had a marriage that looked like it was thriving from the outside. But on the inside, he was exhausted and looking for an escape hatch. So he resigned his position, separated from his wife, and started a new relationship. That’s how his book Tree of Liesbegins.

Scott went on a long journey where he eventually discovered that focusing on behaviors and trying hard to get it right is not the path to God, it’s the path to burnout. In this conversation, we covered lots of ground: we talked about true self and false self, freedom and rest, and how to get honest about your actual life.

Just in the last few years, it seems as though the tide of culture, in general, is sweeping everybody away from their true, essential selves and into the quagmire of tribe and groupthink. It’s becoming harder and harder to know who you are, what you think, and how you feel. It’s becoming harder and harder to spend time on what’s genuinely important.

During this episode, I shared some stories, practices, and questions that might help you to regain a sense of your essential self. These include learning to say the shortest, truest thing, knowing how to identify toxic relationships (and giving yourself permission to set boundaries and even leave them), and learning to simply sit with the Divine and experience God’s love, who accepts you as you are and not as you should be.

This episode is for anyone who has jettisoned a theological framework that couldn’t hold deep questions and a desire to see an integrated thread of seemingly different traditions.

Danny Coleman grew up in the charismatic stream of Evangelical Christianity, where his particular church put sole emphasis on that future moment when all will someday be made new by Jesus at his second coming. Danny kept wondering if there was more, and it led him to a house church, then the Quakers, then… this book. It is refreshing and hopeful. Coleman’s view combines Christian contemplation, Buddhist meditation, and process theology in developing a transformative and inclusive view of God, each other, and the universe. This episode will stretch your thinking, most likely. Enjoy!

Connect with Daniel by heading over to his website, or by viewing this brief video or this one (where he discusses process theology). You can buy his book here.

What difference are you making in the world, and how can you know if you’re wasting your time?

Who are you to think that you have influence over people in a way that might make their life better?

How do you know your own sphere of influence? How can you tell where it starts and where it stops?

How can you grow healthier in the way that you view influence?

In this episode, I tackled the dirty word “influence.” I believe you can be wrecked by constantly wanting more and more influence, always hungry for the affirmation that it never really gives. But I also believe there is a way to think about influence that is healthy, necessary and life-giving.